Jeremy’s POV
“Intensive care?” I said nervously to Eric and Jenna, who were now walking far too quickly for me to keep up without bringing up the coffee. We’d reached Hazel’s ward now, so I’d survive now for sure. We began scanning the numbers on the doors, searching for the one that had 34 on it. 10,12,14,16. We weren’t even close yet.
“Did she hurt herself too when she fell?” asked Eric, who was now nearly running forwards.
“None of us saw it, remember?” Jenna answered, and she was right, too. None of us saw what happened first hand.
“What else would she be in there for then?” Eric continued, as we came up to room 28.
“I don’t know, but hopefully we find out right now” I attempted to calm everyone down as we stopped outside room 34. We all glanced at each other before Eric knocked three times on the door. There was a moment of respite before the nurse came to the door and beckoned us in.
“Friends?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am” Eric answered in a weird, formal way. THAT was new.
“No need for that, call me Abbie. Something tells me I’ll be seeing you a lot” the nurse quickly set the record straight after the bizarre comment from Eric. We all waddled into the room, not sure of what to expect. There, lying in a bed, was Hazel. Her eyes were shut, but it didn’t appear that she was on any sort of painkillers, which was a good start.
“Is she sleeping?” I ask Abbie, who quickly assures me she hasn’t been knocked unconscious or harmed physically.
“So, why’s she in here then?” pipes Jenna, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since she came in to the building. I looked to her, and noticed there were dark circles under her eyes. Strange.
“Well she isn’t responding normally to any of us, we’ve tried asking her a tonne of questions but she hasn’t responded at all so we thought we would keep her in here to keep and eye on her” was the response, which snapped my attention away from Jenna. Abbie was also eying Jenna carefully, who was now looking down at the screen of her mobile phone. Eric looked at both Abbie and I, and then to Jenna as well. There was an air of displacement, but I couldn’t put a finger on what the cause of this was. Abbie looked away, but looked a little concerned.
“Now,” she announced, “you can visit Ms. Prior, but on three conditions”
We all nodded in agreement, with Jenna now back with us in the real world.
“One: don’t make her uncomfortable. Two: Don’t say anything about what happened yesterday. She doesn’t remember and talking about it may cause her to panic. And three: if she responds to anything you say, find me immediately. Deal?”
“Deal.” We said simultaneously.
Abbie nodded, and led us to chairs that were to the sides of the occupied bed. She then left the room, shutting the door behind her. I sat, as did Eric, who had his eyes glued on Hazel. Jenna didn’t find a chair though, she decided that she was going to stand and look out the window. She seemed tense, as she pulled out her phone. I glanced over to Eric to see if we were seeing the same things, but he still hadn’t looked up from Hazel. I sighed, then stood up and slowly walked over to the window. She continued to stare into the distance as I looked to see if she’d noticed my arrival, and I too looked out onto the city of Melbourne. It was beautiful, but the stormy weather was a bit of a downer. It seemed like it was raining all hours of the day in winter, and sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference between night and day. As I observed the different colours of the cars that drove past the hospital, I attempted to solve some puzzles in my head. I thought back to the last time I saw Jenna like this, which was a week ago, after her boyfriend broke up with her, which was probably what was bothering her. I turned my attention back to her, and before I could ask she said softly “Yes, it’s Michael that’s on my mind”
